life with the lieutenant

• The first set of movers have come and gone this morning. They took our "express" shipment, which included my Kitchenaid, coffee maker, and vacuum (aka The Big Three). Basically, the kitchen is dead to me now. We are officially swapped over to plastic utensils and paper plates and tomorrow we will be sleeping on the floor. We will still be in our apartment though, and that truly is the silver lining! None of this feels real yet. I feel like someone hid my mixer in a cabinet somewhere and life here will just keep going on as usual.

• Yesterday felt long and stressful. It was about 400 degrees with 100% humidity and we had to get the kids out to burn some energy. Of course, we had to wait until almost 11 to get out and go somewhere because nothing in Korea opens until 11. That is one part of life here that I will seriously not miss. That, and every Thursday on post, nothing opens until 1pm. Oh, and every Monday, everything everywhere in Korea is closed. I am ready for some 24/7 America. Anyways, we took a big ol' sweaty walk down to Pang Pangs to let the kids jump and play. 

All three kids had a great time.

• But then it turned into lunchtime and we had to skedaddle before everyone's hangry started to show. We sweaty walked it back to McDonalds and ate and watched all the cars go by. One last sweaty walk up the hill and then Poopalooza 2015 began. For some reason (maybe the McDonalds?) both kids just could NOT stop pooping yesterday. We hit new lows when Steve walked in the kids' bathroom and said something about there being pooped smeared everywhere. I was in the kitchen and actually started laughing when I heard that (smeared poop is always funnier if you're not the one dealing with it), but then I got called in for reinforcement and seriously you guys, poop was EVERYWHERE. I have no idea how she (sorry to out you, Myer) even managed to get it on the bottom of one foot and on the stool and then a beanbag chair, but she did. After that, I was ready to strap some diapers on these potty-trained children and call it a day. We ate all the leftovers in the fridge for dinner and somehow the little people still found fault with a dinner of macaroni and cheese and apple slices. Long baths, early bedtime, then Steve and I got to organizing the items that would be going in the express shipment. 

That paper chain used to touch the floor! Holy smokes!

• I had my last OB appointment here this week. While I won't miss our clinic here, I will miss the sweet Korean nurse that subtracted two pounds off my weight since I was wearing sandals and holding my (empty) wallet. Bless her. I need her to do my weight check every time. Might even lose some by the end of this pregnancy, according to her readings!
• And speaking of Third Baby, there is nothing really to report (other than the fact that we are officially halfway there!). This is not a blog where you will find weekly bumpdates because 

1. ain't nobody got time for that
2. boring
3. I think we all know how this story ends (spoiler: baby)
4. I don't know how to take a flattering side view photo of myself, or if that scenario even exists, so I just avoid "bump photos" altogether to save us all from cringing. You're welcome.

• I did venture out to the Korean OB clinic last week because I just really needed to settle down and know that everything in there was ok, and the Korean clinic will give you an ultrasound if you give them $30, so that seemed easy enough. Well, it would have been easy enough if I had a car and didn't have to drag two kids through the rain to a place that wasn't terribly close to a train station and then wait for over an hour with said children who were not at all entertained by the Korean game show that was being played in the waiting room. I was finally seen though and everything checked out just fine and I could breathe again. After going over everything with the ultrasound tech, I had to wait to see the doctor. She went through every ultrasound again with me, but in rapid-fire succession and while she speaks very good English, it was still hard to listen through her accent while she spoke so quickly. 
• doctor: "liverkidneyspalatteumbilicalcordspinebrain"
• me: "did you say cleft palatte?!"
• doctor: "no. Palatte is fine. heartbeatspinalcordstomachintestinesbrain"
• me: ... 
• doctor: "Baby is fine. You come back four weeks and see baby again."
• me, happily: "Well, we're moving in two weeks so this will be my last visit."
• doctor, uninterested: "Ok. Bye bye."

• We rode the bus down to the Army post in Seoul this past week to kill time. There is a free bus that runs from our post to Seoul's post. While I was checking out the bus schedule, I completely forgot what day it was (pregnancy brain, yes?) and based our travel around the weekend schedule. After coming to my senses and realizing that I am an idiot, we ended up not being able to catch the bus from our post. This resulted in quite the hustle down the hill from our apartment to the train station. We rode the train for a few stops and got off in the next big town over. From there we took a cab to the Army post between us and Seoul. The buses do a "layover" there and we were able to walk onto post and take a bus from there to Seoul. The bus is so nice- air conditioned, plenty of seats, and we get to just relax and not worry about traffic. After arriving in Seoul, we walked over to the PX and had lunch. We brought some "cheesy dibbles" for Sam and Molly (I will cut the first person that tells him they're called cheetos!) for after they finished their sandwich. 

Look at that adorable cheesy cheese.

• Then we literally looked at every single thing in the PX. We were walking around the TV section and found Despicable Me playing, so we just parked it there for about 20-30 minutes and soaked up the AC.

• We are past the point about being ashamed of this sort of thing; we really just need something - anything - to do that doesn't involve being in our apartment or sweating our guts out all over town. After a nice long bus ride home (our bus companions were QUITE entertaining to say the least), we made it home in time to play on the playground, baths, dinner, and beds.
• The kids have been really good with all of this transition/upheaval. They are entertaining themselves with their imaginations since we've packed up 90% of their toys. Lately they've taken to playing "golf" with hockey sticks and tennis balls. Not at all concerning when our tv sits two feet off the ground/hockey stick level. Thankfully the tv will be packed up tomorrow. Or maybe I shouldn't be too thankful about that. It provides quite a bit of entertainment when it's too hot/early to do anything else around here.

Here's to hoping Steve's phone never dies or loses internet connectivity.

• Once we have all of our furniture moved out, I suspect this move will feel a little more "real" to me. But right now we are just doing the same ol' same ol' and life just keeps on moving.